Maplesoft Blogger Profile: Jim Cooper

James (Jim) Cooper has successfully built Maplesoft into the world’s premier advanced mathematics, modeling and simulation software provider. He is responsible for the company’s financial performance, and oversees all aspects of the company’s operations including strategic business planning, product direction as well as sales and marketing.

Cooper brings over 20 years of experience in corporate management of advanced technology business ventures to his role as President and CEO of Maplesoft. Prior to joining Maplesoft, Cooper co-owned WESCAM, the highly successful manufacturer of gyro-stabilized camera pods used extensively in both the security and entertainment industries. In addition, he successfully started and developed Puppetworks.com, makers of motion capture devices for the 3D animation industry. Cooper has held senior positions with a number of high technology companies. He was Worldwide Director for Intelligent Networks with Sema Wireless Group; Divisional Manager at Alias-Wavefront, a world renowned 3D graphics company; and Development Manager at CAE, makers of advanced aircraft flight simulators.

Cooper graduated on the Dean’s honor list from the University of Waterloo in 1980 with a Bachelor’s of Engineering and started his career as a control engineer, developing advanced control systems for aircraft flight simulators.

Posts by Jim Cooper

It’s hard to believe, but Maplesoft as a company has reached the quarter-century mark. Twenty-five years ago this month, the founders launched this company as a vehicle to market, distribute and support a symbolic computation program they had created called Maple. They had...

Selling a company is emotionally wrenching. It was even more intensive for us at Maplesoft since we had a large number of founders who had been actively involved with the company for 20+ years. The decision for founders to sell a company so that it can move to the next stage is truly massive.

We had the luxury of a number of suitors with essentially equivalent initial financial offers, but this also destined us for a long process with lots of discussion and many twists and detours along the way. I remember the saying: that which does not kill you makes you stronger ;-). This was also my 2nd time going through the full process and maybe I can offer some advice to novices, noting the old saying that free advice is not always worth the price.

I don’t think anyone would argue that the last few years have been pretty eventful. Modern industry is facing critical challenges, as design tasks become increasingly complex. Fortunately, we are seeing the development of new technologies that are allowing us to rise to the challenge. Techniques like rapid plant modeling for control applications, robust formulation techniques for automatic model generation, and the application of symbolic computation technology are accelerating the modeling process while ensuring correctness and sound scientific principles. The world of engineering is changing, and I’ve been fortunate to watch some of these developments first-hand.

A dramatic change in how we interact with the environment demands an equally dramatic change in how we develop technology. The evolution of predictive technology – in other words, software - has been a precursor to the development of environmentally progressive technologies like clean coal power stations and hybrid energy vehicles.

Modern software tools should allow engineers to design, develop and test their designs before a single part is sent to the prototyping shop. So why is it not happening? Why are hundreds of prototypes manufactured, tested and then rejected? Why is so much time wasted at the testing and then redesigning stage?

Individually, the components for the ideal virtual prototyping tool are available, but they have not yet been wrapped up into a single integrated environment that’s based on design principles that engineers find intuitive.

A little over ten years ago, I was shown a brief demonstration of Maple and I was astounded if not shocked by what it could do and my imagination immediately kicked into overdrive with ideas on how this unique technology could transform the way people work. My imagination has not settled down since.

These are exciting times for Maplesoft. With the introduction of an outstanding new release of Maple and a revolutionary technology MapleSim for modeling and simulation, we’re poised to launch a new generation of innovation and productivity for the engineering and mathematics community.

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